Ever since self-defacing teenager
Tawana Brawley smeared feces all over herself,
scrawled "KKK" and "nigger" on her skin,
climbed into a trash bag, and blamed it on racist cops
in New York, America has been victimized by wannabe
victims—warped publicity-seekers so desperate for
attention that they`ll fake the hate by any means
necessary.

Brawley (who now calls herself
Maryam Muhammad) is all grown up. But her
psychologically-stunted heirs continue to soak up public
sympathy and squander police resources.

Recent media attention has focused on the
pathetic case of Audrey Seiler, a 20-year-old
sophomore at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who reportedly
faked her own abduction and sent 150 cops on an
intensive manhunt. The search ended when law
enforcement authorities discovered Seiler in a marsh two
miles from her home. A store surveillance tape revealed
that Seiler herself had purchased a knife, duct tape and
rope found at the "crime" scene.

Experts have compared Seiler to Brawley, but the analogy
does not quite fit. There will always be lone troubled
hoaxers like Seiler who abuse a community`s compassion
for bizarre personal gratification. What made the
Brawley case truly distinct and despicable, however, was
its underlying political agenda. Brawley and her race
card-playing patrons,
Al Sharpton,
Alton Maddox and C. Vernon Mason,
maliciously smeared
innocent white men to falsely reinforce the notion
of America as an unredeemable oppressor of
females and minorities.

I`ve reported before
on the hate crime hoax phenomenon at Arizona State
University (where Muslim student
Ahmad Saad Nasim faked assaults against himself to
exploit the September 11 terrorist attacks) and at the
University of Mississippi (where black students
falsely blamed racist vandalism against fellow black
students on whites).

The latest case of
apparently manufactured racism involves left-wing
academic Kerri Dunn. On March 9, the Claremont McKenna
College visiting professor of psychology
claimed she discovered anti-Semitic, anti-black,
anti-woman epithets ("kike," "nigger lover," and
"whore") spray-painted on her 1992 Honda Civic. The
car`s windows were smashed and the tires slashed. Dunn
had been a vocal critic of other alleged racist
incidents on campus. After she reported the incident,
administrators and students rallied around Dunn; classes
were cancelled at all five of the Claremont Colleges;
local and federal authorities launched an investigation.

Things started
smelling funny when so many students
didn`t even know what "kike" meant that the
campus rabbi had to put out an explanatory press
release. Dunn, for that matter, isn`t even Jewish. She
is a Catholic "considering" converting to
Judaism.

So how did Dunn`s
purported assailants know this? She explained that the
attack—which she called
"a well-planned-out act of terrorism"—[Listen
to her speech
here, 9 MB Mp3]
must have been committed by her own students, who knew
of her plans to convert.

More irksome questions
arose. How did the assailants know which car on the
campus parking lot was hers? The students must have
followed her, Dunn said.

And what about the
$1,700 in property she told police had been stolen,
which mysteriously turned up in Dunn`s possession?

No explanation.

The final blow to
Dunn`s credibility came when Claremont police and the
FBI concluded that Dunn the victim was also the
victimizer. Giving new meaning to the phrase "auto
vandalism," two witnesses
told investigators that they saw Dunn drive her
car—adorned with the offending graffiti—into a parking
lot and smash the car`s windows and slash the tires
herself.

Investigators and
administrators say the witnesses are credible and
(unlike Dunn) have no agenda.

As is typical in these
cases, the perpetrator and her loyal supporters are in
denial. Dunn, who was involved in
past tangles with the law over shoplifting charges,
blames the police for being irresponsible and
"irreparably damag[ing]
her reputation and emotional health." Minority
students shrug at the fraud. "I`m not concerned with
whether it`s a hoax or not," said Pomona College
junior Adam Briggs of the Pan-African Student
Association.

Of course not. When it comes to smearing America, as
Tawana Brawley taught us all so well, the end always
justifies the manufactured means.